Central Place Theory
Central Place Theory, developed by Walter Christaller, explains the spatial distribution of human settlements and the economic relationships between them. It posits that settlements serve as central places providing goods and services to surrounding areas, with larger settlements offering more specialized and higher-order functions. The theory helps understand the organization and hierarchy of urban and rural centers within a region.
5 Key excerpts on "Central Place Theory"
eBook - ePubMarketing Geography (RLE Retailing and Distribution)
With special reference to retailing
- Ross Davies(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...However, ‘home’ interview procedures permit more in-depth studies of consumer behaviour and have been extensively used in broader shopping enquiries. An important refinement of this technique is the ‘diary’ type of survey, in which consumers keep actual records of the details of their trips over several days. A ‘diary’ survey undertaken for the city planning department in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1947, 14 subsequently became a major data source for testing various Central Place Theory postulates in America for more than two decades. 15 Central Place Theory Central Place Theory was originally formulated by the German economist and geographer, Walter Christaller, in the early 1930s 16 but its most extensive examination and utilisation in the English-speaking world has occurred in relatively recent times. In general terms, the theory seeks to explain an apparent order in the spatial distribution of urban settlements. This order is most conspicuous in the sizes and spacing of those settlements particularly important for providing goods and services to surrounding populations, and described as central places. The theory, however, does not account for urban growth characteristics arising from industrial or other productive forces. It is concerned much more specifically with explaining regularities in the locations of tertiary activities as these are manifest in business centres...
eBook - ePubComplex Spatial Systems
The Modelling Foundations of Urban and Regional Analysis
- Alan Geoffrey Wilson(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...There may, however, be circumstances where the Hotelling agglomeration effect does operate. Central Place Theory Introduction: The Basic Assumption Central Place Theory is associated with the names of two Germans: Christaller, a geographer, and Losch, an economist. Their systems have much geometry in common and although we will start with Christaller's theory, we will use some of the clarifications of this theory articulated by Losch and other authors. Spelling out the geometry in this way enables us to offer a relatively brief account of Losch's work later. There is much controversy about the assumptions of Central Place Theory. Initially, we will take as simple as possible a view of these in order to present the main ideas. A more critical review will be offered later. There are essentially two kinds of assumptions: those concerned with the behaviour of the various agents in the system, broadly speaking, of firms and consumers; and those related to the backcloth on which the action takes place. Firms are assumed to maximise profits in producing goods and services and selling them to the population. People are assumed to minimise transport costs in purchasing the goods and services they require. The geographical system is assumed to consist of a uniform distribution of population and a ubiquitous transport system which is such that travel is equally easy in all directions. The population is considered uniform both in density and purchasing power. Firms are assumed to locate in centres (which are treated as points). These centres are settlements which also each have a population (and hence, as soon as centres appear, the uniform density assumption is in a sense modified). In Christaller's original formulation, the uniform population was essentially the rural population based on farms and agricultural work. The settlements are villages, towns and cities...
eBook - ePubPlace and Politics
The Geographical Mediation of State and Society
- John A. Agnew(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Place, therefore, refers to discrete if ‘elastic’ areas in which settings for the constitution of social relations are located and with which people can identify. The “paths” and “projects” of everyday life, to use the language of time-geography, provide the practical “glue” for place in these three senses (Pred 1984). To the extent that places are similar in these respects, interconnected and contiguous one can refer to a “region” of places (Cox 1969b). In that situation the sense of place can be projected onto the region or a “nation” and give rise to regionalism or nationalism. The sense of place need not be restricted to the scale of the locality. The question of how to define place has exercised geographers and others for many years (Tuan 1974, Raffestin 1981, Scivoletto 1983, Strassoldo 1983, Muscarà 1983). In their approaches to it, one or other of the three elements has tended to predominate. For example, economic geographers have tended to emphasize location, cultural geographers have been centrally concerned with sense of place, and a few humanistic geographers have concerned themselves with locale. Rarely have the three aspects been brought together. The central focus here on locale, because of its sociological importance, leads to an emphasis on place as synonymous with locality. But the incorporation of location into the definition of place implicates processes at other scales. A key tenet is that the local social worlds of place (locale) cannot be understood apart from the objective macro-order of location and the subjective territorial identity of sense of place. They are all related; if ultimately locale is the most central element sociologically it must be grounded geographically...
eBook - ePubThe Economics of Property and Planning
Future Value
- Graham Squires(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Balancing of land use types are also important in the discussion, and here we focus on brownfield land use, by discussing the concerns of economic viability along with social and environmental sustainability. Location theories It is important to conceptualise spatial patterning and dynamics when understanding how places have developed over time. In demonstrating such generalised patterns that can be mirrored in many places, the underlying spatial reasoning for environmental resource distribution and emergent place-based issues can be more clearly understood. Several key general spatial models have been applied to the development and are now explained. Concentric zones (Burgess model) The first significant land use patterns that have developed in places, and in turn explain the distribution of social groups in places, is represented spatially by Burgess’ concentric zone model (Burgess, 1925). As shown in Figure 20, the spatial model is depicted as a series of five concentric rings rippling out from a Central Business District (CBD) in the centre. The CBD is comprised of office buildings, hotels, museums, retails buildings, and others. The first zone (labelled 1) is comprised of wholesale buildings where warehouse and storage facilities are located to provide accessible supplies for the businesses in the CBD. Out from this in zone 2 is an area that is more transitional with a mix of low quality (even slum) housing and a variety of mixed-use businesses. The third zone is comprised of mainly low- and middle-income housing that would primarily house industrial workers. The fourth zone would be where upper-income single-family residents are housed, and zone 5 is where high-income suburban commuters would live. Further development of this zoning model would be a growth of the CBD as the central seat of activity, and as it grows outward, there is pressure on each successive zone to expand out further in proportion to the CBD growth...
eBook - ePub- Cliff Hague, Paul Jenkins, Cliff Hague, Paul Jenkins(Authors)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...These were predicated on assumed shared values of three aims: containment, redevelopment, and planned dispersal. Place Regional and local land use planning were serious attempts to control the micro-economics of places within a Keynesian macro-economic environment. Planning was part of the general modernization project to create better living environments for the majority. However, the legal/political environment was relatively closed, depending on the forms of representative democracy, with a strong role for professional planners with the technical skills to make the aspirations of governments a reality. A variety of planned interventions—‘growth poles’, city centre rebuilding, new industrial estates, new towns, ring roads, etc.—were led by government investment with the intention of creating modern places of functional efficiency and broad social equity. However, the ‘character’ of places was protected through, for instance, green belts and the listing of historic buildings and monuments. Territory Territorial integrity was a major force, and little questioned at first, so that planning was typically defined by national legislation but often a function of historic local administrative units that bore less and less relation to functional realities as mobility and dispersal increased. This led logically to concerns for larger, more efficient territorial units and promotion of ideas for regional-scale planning. While local territory increasingly became a friction to be overcome (e.g. to accommodate overspill housing), socio-cultural identification with local territories with claims to historic authenticity was relatively strong. Box 2.2 Space, place and territory in planning in the light of recent effects of globalization Space Space The globalization of competition and consumerism exposes everywhere to similar pressures to manipulate space so as to cut costs, grow markets and reduce state regulation of space while increasing private control and consumption of space...
